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These propaganda sessions for Putin are pre-staged so Snowden has allowed himself to be used as a "propaganda tool". Considering how freedoms are curtailed in Russia, it seriously deminishes Snowden's reputation.

That's presuming that either Snowden intended to help Putin all along, or that he realized that his safety is not guaranteed, no matter what the US says. Either way, the way the US handled his flight was nothing short of incompetent and disgraceful.

He chose to flee to the two countries with the BIGGEST free speech / surveillance issues in the world-- China and Russia-- after publicly blowing the whistle on much lesser instances in the US.

I mean we're throwing a fit about the NSA's capturing of "metadata". China just snorts up every bit of cell and internet data that goes in or out of any ISP or carrier, and they barely attempt to hide it. Im sure Russia is pretty close.

So yes, he had a choice, and he made it about 8 months ago, and it was a remarkably bad one.

I mean we're throwing a fit about the NSA's capturing of "metadata". China just snorts up every bit of cell and internet data that goes in or out of any ISP or carrier, and they barely attempt to hide it. Im sure Russia is pretty close.

What China does in surveillance of their own citizens isn't acceptable in my opinion but how is "they're even worse" a valid defence for the US which has constantly acted like it stands apart on these matters. Secondly, and something I think Americans really don't appreciate, as someone from outside both China and the US I know China would probably try and intercept my calls etc, but at least they don't pretend to be my friend while they are at it which America has been.

I'm yet to hear a good criticism of how Snowden behaved. Arguments like "he should have stayed within the system" are laughable when one considers what he already tried and the fates of others who tried, the but, but, but someone else is worse argument is relative and just shoddy misdirection. I'm incredibly grateful that he had the balls to share what he knew with the world.

What China does in surveillance of their own citizens isn't acceptable in my opinion but how is "they're even worse" a valid defence for the US which has constantly acted like it stands apart on these matters. Secondly, and something I think Americans really don't appreciate, as someone from outside both China and the US I know China would probably try and intercept my calls etc, but at least they don't pretend to be my friend while they are at it which America has been.

I don't think China and Russia being worse is a valid defence for the US. But I do think it's a valid point of criticism for Snowden. It is a bit hypocritical to criticize the US's surveillance activities, and then flee to the only two major powers that are demonstrably worse.

That being said I think he did have understandable motives, he wanted to go to somewhere that wouldn't extradite him to the US. That means a country that is a) not particularly friendly with the US, and b) powerful enough to resist US pressure, that pretty much means China and Russia. As the Evo Morales grounding incident [wikipedia.org] demonstrates Europe was not an option. Maybe Ecuador was but they may not have been big enough and he still had to get there.

It's still unfortunate that he's in Russia, I think the Ukraine incident has revealed that Putin is a bit crazier than anyone anticipated and Snowden's position more tenuous. The Russians may have been threatening to send him back to the US as a concession to ease the sanctions unless he starts cooperating in their propaganda.

As I said elsewhere, this argument makes no sense. We've shown Americans how we deal with leakers by our handling of Bradley/Chelsea Manning. Snowden had no choice but to go to our enemies for asylum. He's an American. For him to be a hypocrite, he'd have to spy on americans. If he has to do propaganda for the Russians to survive, then who cares? It's the Russians' problem, not ours.

We've shown Americans how we deal with leakers by our handling of Bradley/Chelsea Manning. Snowden had no choice but to go to our enemies for asylum.

Please don't compare Manning to Snowden. Manning copied everything he could get his hands on and released it all without any consideration for whether or not it had a valid reason to be secret. He threw the baby out with the bathwater. Snowden has been careful to release only the things he feels violated the oath he and others took to the U.S. Constitution. One is a vandal. The other is a genuine whistleblower if not a patriot and hero.

For him to be a hypocrite, he'd have to spy on americans. If he has to do propaganda for the Russians to survive, then who cares? It's the Russians' problem, not ours.

I dunno why you think he has to spy on Americans to be a hypocrite. By doing propaganda for the Russians, he is affirming that sometimes you have to compromise your lesser values in order to protect greater ones. That's exactly what he's whistleblowing the U.S. government for doing - compromising Americans' privacy in order to (in their best estimation) protect their safety. If you actually listen to what Feinstein and others who defend these programs are saying, they're not evilly rubbing their hands together while cackling with glee that they're violating the Constitution. They implemented these programs because they genuinely thought the benefit (improved safety for Americans) was worth the cost (warrant-less searches and degradation of privacy).

What differentiates what he's doing IMHO is that if something is written in the Constitution, that kinda implies that it's an uncompromisable value. That you cannot violate Americans' 4th Amendment rights even if doing so would result in greater safety. Exceptions can be made during martial law and war, but no such declarations were made (unless you consider the war on terrorism to be a real, declared, and unending war).

You really are a special kind of tool, ain't you?Let's hear how many deaths you predict your baseless and idiotic post will cause? My "estimate" is at least 10k. Furthermore, I predict the fact that I woke this morning should produce at least 20 deaths.

Off topic: why isn't there a "Ridiculous" moderation for these cases (not trolling but purely idiotic)?

Do you not remember the grounding of a presidential figure's aircraft on the basis of the possibility that Snowden was on it? To say this man had a choice is to completely ignore the situation. 100 percent.

"Talking about NSA "invasions of privacy" is a bit ironic when you're cooperating with a country that is literally invading other countries."
Good point.
I'm also reminded a bit of Benedict Arnold. He was a patriot, too.

What does Snowden care about free speech rights in his country of exile? The important aspect for him is that while the U.S. might drop a commando team into any Western Hemisphere country to retrieve Snowden and then say "umm, sorry" afterwards, they aren't going to risk that with China or Russia. I'm surprised the U.S. didn't just let Snowden go to Ecuador or Bolivia or wherever and then extract him. I guess that could still happen.

He chose to flee to the two countries with the BIGGEST free speech / surveillance issues in the world-- China and Russia-- after publicly blowing the whistle on much lesser instances in the US.

I mean we're throwing a fit about the NSA's capturing of "metadata". China just snorts up every bit of cell and internet data that goes in or out of any ISP or carrier, and they barely attempt to hide it. Im sure Russia is pretty close.

I don't know about you, but I don't want my country to only have to be slightly better than China or Russia. I don't give a crap how bad or good Russia or China are; I only care that my country abide by the values it claims to uphold. Being China++ doesn't mean much.

Snowden's best chance of survival is to stay in the limelight, where his keepers will risk public scrutiny if he is harmed. So, assuming that becoming a tool was Snowden's only choice, his required tool-task wasn't that bad. Just lob a softball question to Putin, and let Putin respond with propaganda. Snowden didn't have to lie or endorse anything, and it gave him the necessary renewal of his 15 minutes of fame.

He probably could have tried legal measures to implement reform if it was actually more important to him than being famous

He wants more than fame, he wants to establish Russia as a global power, again. Problem is, his economy is mostly natural resourced exporting - which means it's pretty weak on manufacturing or services.

Extracting natural resources, transporting and selling them is very far from a trivial task.

Maybe not trivial, but it doesn't drive innovation. It's like the 16th century Spaniards extracting gold from S. America and transporting it to Europe. Not trivial, but they still went bankrupt. The English innovated in shipbuilding and navigation. The rest is history.

He probably could have tried legal measures to implement reform if it was actually more important to him than being famous

Really? What legal measures could he have tried while remaining in the US? He would have been arrested faster than SSD read times, and never heard from again for "national security" reasons. The government's first response was to label him a traitor - they don't let you have much freedom as a traitor, in case you didn't know. I doubt any legal measures he could have tried before being arrested as a traitor would even have been reported on by the press, again for national security reasons.

Whether you think his revelations were right or wrong, I think you'd have to agree he couldn't have truly revealed anything successfully by staying in the US.

I think Snowden did the right thing when he revealed the NSA blanket spying on the US public. I think he did the wrong thing when he revealed legitimate spying on foreign nations such as the revelations about spying on the Chinese military. I think the former was so important that he deserved an award for it. I think the later was so damaging to our legitimate foreign espionage that he should be jailed for it.

If he ever returns to the US he should be publicly honored for the former and jailed for the later. It's unfortunate that for whatever reason he came up with that he decided to reveal that legitimate espionage. It's destroyed his reputation among most Americans and in truth it's damaged the good stuff he did do. All those foreign spying revelations have ultimately destroyed his legacy, if he had stayed on topic of mass spying on the American people (his claimed goal) he might have been able to return to the US someday. As it stands if he ever returns he'll likely spend the rest of his life in prison and most Americans are going to remember him as a traitor.

When considering public opinion on such matters, note that the majority of the country once believed Saddam Hussein caused 9/11, that the Vietnam War was legitimate, that slavery was okay, etc. Leaker of the pentagon papers Daniel Ellsburg was also considered a traitor in the 70's and underwent the same treatment as Snowden by the military/intelligence bureaus, but as time went on and the government propaganda machine moved on to other matters, he largely became regarded as a hero. That said, I'd be curious

Espionage is never legitimate unless you consider it acceptable for others to do it to you in the manner in which you do it to them. The hypocrisy of the NSA, CIA, GCHQ, BND, Mossad, FSB, etc. is grossly palpable. Everyone seems to do it, yet it's "shame on you" if anyone does it them. Pulling down the curtains was an important demonstration of collective, well deserved shame.

This crap belongs in movies and video games, not the real world. The citizenry of the world's nations should not be the game pieces used in the amusement and distraction of political and military rulers.

I expect and accept that every nation state engages in espionage against other governments. It's a good thing. It helps those nations understand each other, their motivations, what their red lines are and why they do the things they do in a world where different cultures see the very same thing differently. It prevents war directly though these actions.

That doesn't mean governments shouldn't try to gain the advantage by stopping as much spying as they can. It's natural for a nation-state to seek advantage a

It's absolutely a shame. The dog and pony show of foreign leaders expressing shock and dismay in return for their electorate's goodwill is embarrassing. Angela Merkel grew up in East Germany, and didn't know phones could be tapped? Please.

Victoria Nuland, a State Department official, was recorded in a private phone call dismissively saying "Fuck the EU" and suggesting names for post-Yanukovych leadership America would be content in a phone call with the US Ambassador to Ukraine, and it's released to the

I asked my senator if he had ever called her about his concerns. She said "no." I'm going to go out on a limb and say that he never called Ron/Rand Paul, or any other congressman that one would assume would be receptive to the sort of grievances Snowden supposedly has.

For a few seconds I thought you were being serious, and I was going to respond with something like "You think going to a politician, any politician, with material the government considers treasonous to reveal, is a good idea?!?" But then I realized you must be joking, because no one is that insane. So I applaud you sir/madame, well done! You had me a for a bit.

What does "gone to Congress" mean? You mean like just walking in the front door and demanding speaking time during a joint session of both houses? (not gonna happen) Or do you mean he could have contacted a congressman, which would give him a fairly high chance of being arrested within hours for being a traitor? (or do you think contacting a congressman with information about the NSA's activities would somehow remain quiet for long?)

Maybe you aren't aware of it, but under the US Constitution the Congress has special powers that are quite useful in situations like this.

Maybe you aren't aware of it, but the US Constitution doesn't seem to have

That isn't actually true. The contractor protections were not as firm, but they apparently existed. (And from what I've read that has been addressed now.) And I'm pretty sure that would be a moot question if he had gone to Congress.

If you look at the history of whistleblowers, many end up getting tried for espionage and treason by the country whose secrets they leaked, no matter how noble the cause. Just look at the guy who revealed the abuses at Guantanamo; the U.S. government didn't exactly welcome him with open arms.

That's right damit! No matter how bad the government is acting it is YOUR DUTY as an AMERICAN to shut-up and do what you are told. Even if you think the government is subverting the constitution (as Snowden did) you should just keep your mouth shut and do the patriotic thing and sing the national anthem louder than anyone around you. And if by some crazy reason (morality) you wish to expose the corrupt government, by no means should you try and protect yourself from said corrupt government. No siree, just bend over and take it on your way to Guantanamo. That will make it much easier for the corrupt government to label you as a terrorist and keep you shut-up, since you did not have the patriotic disposition to shut yourself up. When will these unpatriotic whistle blowers realize that the government is only trying to protect the great people of this country from communist whistle blowers. Geeeezz

LOL oh man you are so right, look how many terrorist attacks have happened since the snowden leaks eh, now that all of the NSAs spying techniques are known and now stopped. I guess the bad guys have all moved now from forming plots via gmail & twitter & facebook to secretz underground cave meetings! Snowden deserves to be somewhere better than back in the US, unfortunately, not too many places qualify for a position like that these days...

To anyone who ever says that Snowden told the terrorists about bugging. The 2010 film Four Lions has a scene with the terrorist plotters using a spoof on Disney's "Club Penguin", making it the only safe method to chat to each other (it's a black comedy). Interception was so widely known, it was a joke (see Bin Laden's lack of house-hold comms).

The people who didn't suspect that electronic comms were all thoroughly bugged were the other 99.999999% of the population. They thought the 'goodies' were targeting the 'baddies'.

Do you think there is a useful difference in specificity there? Details matter. The claim that the terrorists "just knew already" is bullshit and a whitewash. Terrorist groups have changed their communication methods since Snowden's leaks and intelligence has been lost because of it.

Does the NSA not have the technology to steam-open their letters, or what? (Also, I call bullshit. The actual (non-business secrets, non-webcam) intelligence the NSA has captured is about zero. Notice how surprised everyone was

Hello? That isn't an act of terrorism, it's a planned mass murder - nothing more, nothing less. Or at least it would be if the term wasn't hijacked lately.

Also where did you get the information that "Terrorist groups have changed their communication methods since Snowden's leaks..."? Made up on the spot _or_ "leaked" from NSA? We know from reliable sources that terrorists have used very sophisticated communication for a long time with the leadership often only being accessible indirect by technical means (u

Also, compare how the main Russian media speak about Putin with how Fox News speaks about Obama.

There is no difference, sorry. Obama is not talked poorly about in US media. Anyone that talks negatively tends to be labelled a racist almost immediately.

In the last week the only things I have heard regarding President Obama in broadcast media are that he talked to Putin about the Ukraine, and that he's coming to town for a yet another fund raiser. I can not possibly watch all 3 major stations all the time (obviously) but do try and rotate stations. It's possible someone did question or talk poorly ab

These propaganda sessions for Putin are pre-staged so Snowden has allowed himself to be used as a "propaganda tool". Considering how freedoms are curtailed in Russia, it seriously deminishes Snowden's reputation.

No it doesn't.

Snowden asked a simple and direct question, as is the norm at Putin's Q&A sessions (he does them with press corps too). Putin gave a simple and direct answer. Whether you believe the answer is a lie or not, it's a question that anyone could have asked and got the same response.

His reputation was destroyed as soon as he ran to China and Russia. Just because some idiots still can't see through the self-promoting douche Glenn Greenwald, and his dupe Snowden, doesn't mean that the rest of us can't see what's up.

You know, when I first saw this I though "Oh God..." but after I had a few minutes to think about it, I came to the conclusion: I, nor anyone else here on slashdot, will ever do anything in our lifetimes as significant as what Edward Snowden did last year. And now he's in a very precarious situation. I suspect he could be used as a bargaining chip by Russia. So whatever he has to say to stay alive in the near future is ok with me. I'll not fault the guy. He already did his good deed for this lifetime.

These propaganda sessions for Putin are pre-staged so Snowden has allowed himself to be used as a "propaganda tool". Considering how freedoms are curtailed in Russia, it seriously deminishes Snowden's reputation.

Snowden doesn't trade on his reputation -- his whistleblowing was a release of the government's own documents, and did not rely on his reputation at all (indeed the public hadn't even heard of him before he released the documents). He's not a career campaigner, just someone who had been working in the business of eavesdropping on all of us and decided that it had gone too far. That he's now effectively in exile is a cost he clearly decided was worth paying, but that in itself doesn't mean that his every a

America learned once why it can't let dictators like Putin just invade their neighbors with impunity. How quickly we forgot where this all goes. It will take more than a sternly worded letter, or laughable sanctions, to stop this shit. And it must be stopped. It's on all of us, otherwise.

Screw you, warmonger. Stop trying to police the world. The only way it matters is if there's clear evidence that they're going to attack America.

Hitler had no immediate plans to attack America. Sometimes shit just gets out of hand and you have to do your part. The longer you wait, the higher the cost in lives and money when you do.

Looks like this flyer is being denied by everyone in the government now: whether or not it was sincere in the first place, the threat from basically everyone in the civilized world is the needed deterrent to stop shit like this before it gets started.

But US can not really do anything. We've got troops still in Afghanistan, the people are sick and tired of over a decade of "pretend nothing is happening" war stance, it's been tremendously expensive and increased the debt to crisis levels. And when we have intervened militarily in the last few decades, especially when being in charge, it's been horribly planned and executed. It's impractical to take on another war, especially a war that is guaranteed to spread to multiple countries.

It loses a bit in the translation but essentially it says "When you're living with wolves, you better learn fast how to howl, lest they might think you're a sheep".

And when you voluntarily move in with those wolves, that's your own damn fault.

This distorts reality quite a bit. Snowden appealed to Russia as a last resort for asylum, it was not his first choice. When he made his appeal his choices were either: 1) Face death (numerous people called for him to die) or life in prison returning to the US. or 2) Attempt to have a life in a different country.

Are you people really so mindless that you have to appeal to laws? All Snowden did was reveal the government's wrongdoings (unconstitutional and otherwise). If you don't like that, well, maybe you should blame the government for being evil scumbags in the first place, as well as the people who voted the fuckers who allowed this in to begin with.

What are governments "competing" about? If anything, many are competing against the people they are supposed to represent.

The nature of the state, and the nature of the secrets, does matter. State secrets are not automatically holy. Fuck what any law ever written, past, present and future says on that matter. Laws are born out of a desire for justice - they do not define justice, they have to answer to it.

Face death (numerous people called for him to die) or life in prison returning to the US.

You can justify anything by making up BS like that.

Liar. Feinstien did say he should be killed. The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

If he stayed in the US he would have a trial and he would have been able to make his case for doing what he did.

Again, you either lie, or perhaps live in a dream world. Legally, he could have made no case for the defense of what he did, nor had a public trial. In the secret trial he would have eventually had, his defense would have been limited to personal stuff; Constitutionality is not a permissible defense here.

In addition he has plenty of supporters and he would have had A LOT more, including myself, if he had not inflicted a mortal wound on his credibility

Right there, your BS becomes clear. He never had any credibility, before or after (actually he does have some n

Spending 2 minutes reading Feinstein's Wiki page discounts any possible claim you have of "extraordinary". You could not possibly be claiming that everything I stated was dependent on Feinstein explicitly stating one sentence in one way, because that would be idiocy.

Here are One [policymic.com], two [foxnews.com], three [huffingtonpost.com] references, all of politicians calling for the death of Snowden (and one of those contains 6 references).

I can not find the exact quote from Feinstein either, but this is not uncommon nor does it make my statement wrong

He might not even be lying. They don't have the hard drive space or the capability to spy on everyone. Of course he doesn't want to spy on *everyone*, just suspected muslims, dissidents, homosexuals or anyone else who might not support the Kremlin.

I would remind everyone that after the Boston Bombings the Russians were very helpful in providing all of Tsarnaev's text messages. They just "happened" to have him under surveillance. What luck!

Perhaps, but there is far more reason to think that Putin is lying, because he's been telling bald-faced lies to the entire world as recently as the past couple of weeks (concerning Ukraine). At least in the US, our politicians tell their lies in a gray area such that fact-checkers give numeric ratings to indicate just how untruthful a statement is. Putin just tells outright lies as if he believed them to be completely true and reasonable himself.

We arent Russia, no matter how much you might try to paint it that way. None of the people you mentioned own the media, no matter how much they adore Obama. You wont be arrested for insulting or protesting Obama. You wont be arrested for reporting on his failings; there are huge websites dedicated to it.

You wont be arrested for insulting or protesting Obama. You wont be arrested for reporting on his failings; there are huge websites dedicated to it.

Of course you will. The Obama administration has prosecuted journalists and leakers at a far higher rate than before. How is one supposed to report on his failings, if the act of revealing them triggers immediate accusations of being a traitor and guaranteed prosecution? The US based papers who reported the Snowden leaks took big risks to do so, and of course th

The Obama administration has prosecuted journalists and leakers at a far higher rate than before.

Resorting to hyperbole to make a point? Let's look at the facts, The espionage act was used eight times:

Thomas Drake -Allegedly retained classified information about the NSA's program of wiretapping without warrants. Charges were dropped in exchange for a guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling government information
Shamai Leibowitz - Charged for "knowingly and willfully disclosing to an unauthori

Don't forget about all the Bush admin people that lied us into the Iraq war. Lots of those folks were the ones that STARTED all these surveillance programs.Plenty of politicians you could repeat your phrase about:

Bush is under no compunction to tell the truth. And there's no reason to expect he would.Cheney is under no compunction to tell the truth. And there's no reason to expect he would.Rice is under no compunction to tell the truth. And there's no reason to expect she would.Rumsfeld is under no compunct

Don't forget about all the Bush admin people that lied us into the Iraq war. Lots of those folks were the ones that STARTED all these surveillance programs.

You have the same government that you started this century with.

They just changed spokesmodels - while you felt like you had a say in the matter... Your coup happened in many stages, over many decades - but defining moments happened with the Truman/Eisenhower/Kennedy years - with a decisive event in Nov 1963...

Snowden's supposed MO is that he was willing to risk the ire of the US and throw away his cushy life because of how bad the NSA was. Now hes in bed with the Russians, and you want to say "maybe he got scared"?

Come on, hes the one who is supposedly in the know about this stuff, hes the one who chose Moscow. Youd have to be a special kind of stupid to have a security clearance, contract for the NSA, and not know how repressive Russia is.

He didn't choose Moscow. He chose Latin America and got stuck in Russia when the USA revoked his passport. It's the US governments fault he's now in Russia and yet they try and paint him as a traitor who ran to the Russians - yet more US hypocrisy and propaganda.

Getting from Hong Kong to Ecuador (or wherever he was going) without flying over any US or allied territory requires strange routes - just go to a flight booking flight and notice that the returned results mostly involve changes in the USA.

Taking such a route was wise - look at how US allies forced down the presidential jet of a LatAm leader just to search for Snowden.

But I'm really not sure why you're arguing with me about this. What happened to Snowden is a matter of public record, it's not something that's up for debate. He got stuck in Russia because the USA revoked his passport and he then wasn't allowed to board his onward flight. But once it became clear that no plane was safe, not even those with diplomatic immunity, if it flew over any US allied territory, he would have been an idiot to leave anyway because that would have been a direct flight into a lifetime of solitary confinement.

But you have to read the statement carefully to understand what he says. It is true that Russia doesn't have the money to put everyone under surveillance like the US does.So they might not do a mass surveillance like the US, instead they just put everyone interesting under direct surveillance: every Duma representative, every Oligarch, and especially everyone who is in public politicial opposition to President Putin. The NSA can't do that even when they would want to, so they simply target everyone: it's wasteful but now they can't be accused of any bias or that they target anyone they don't like.

There's something amusing about Snowden fleeing from the US and ending up in Russia, of all the places. This video shows that he's making use of the channels of free speech there.

Even more amusing was the beginning of Putin's response "You've worked for a spy agency [NSA]. I previously worked for a spy agency [KGB]. We understand each other - we can have a professional dialog." There could have been a suppressed snicker there... and he might as well have followed by saying "you know how the real world opera

Putin does this show [mashable.com] annually. I am sure that the callers are vetted, but the questions tend to be wide-ranging, and don't really seem scripted to me. (I liked the one about buying Alaska back.) After all, it's a 4 hour show.

Now, as for Snowden, I see this as positive. State security is not talked about that much in Russia, and he brought it up. While Putin said pretty much what Obama might have said in 2010 (in other words, it's fair to doubt whether he was being truthful), it gets it out in the open, and all in all I think that is a good thing.

OF COURSE it was scripted and likely highly edited. This is 100% propaganda aimed squarely at the west by Putin. Snowden is just being used to attract attention and shape the message. He's just a pawn in a much larger game.

Reading between the lines though, I wonder what Putin is up to. Why bother with this?

As someone into the business, there's only two prerequisites (concerning surveillance) to operate as an ISP in Russia. The first one is that you must (by the law) to store your ISP's netflow for 2 years, and to provide information for a) specific user (given by First + Last name) or b) by the IP address involved, to a) police, b) FSB or c) court, when they wanted to. And the second one, is that ISP required (by the law) to install surveillance equipment, sufficent enough to capture all the traffic of ISP's very own local clients (not the transit ones). That equipment is called "SORM" which means something like "support of investigation operations". That equipment is a bulk storage that is filled with data from selected customer IP when configured to. Equipment is controlled from local FSB office, using only E1 (smth like DS1) control channel. There's no bulk channel between ISP and FSB office because there's no bulk money at local government to pay to ISP for that. When they think they had gathered enough data. for specific subject, they can use this captured data from the SORM storage in the court. With the current ISP traffic plans, that storage can only held smth like 2hrs of all client's traffic captured simultaneously. Could you consider this as a "massive surveillance"?

I don't understand the hatred towards Snowden for asking an important question regarding surveillance. From the linked article his question:

"So I'd like to ask you, does Russia intercept, store or analyze in any way the communications of millions of individuals? And do you believe that simply increasing the effectiveness of intelligence or law enforcement investigations can justify placing societies, rather than subjects, under surveillance?"

It is a perfectly valid question which needs to be asked to all world leaders. While Putin's answer can certainly be seen as pure political spin, the question itself is a legitimate and forceful question to be posed. And by asking it, it forced Putin to provide an answer through which he can be measured against. He has basically said in nationwide tv that if they did have a mass surveillance system, the state would be breaking the law. This public statement can now be used to hold him accountable should evidence surface proving him as lying.

I would also argue that the question is a far more direct one regarding surveillance than any that has been posed to Obama. And unlike Putin, Obama insists such a surveillance program is legal and necessary. One cannot reform the system without admitting the problem first. Were Obama to give the same answer as Putin to that question, the repercussions would be enormous, as it places a moral and legal standard on the role of surveillance in our society from the chief executive of the nation itself.

"First of all, our intelligence efforts are strictly regulated by our law," Putin said. "So how special forces can use this kind of special equipment as they intercept phone calls or follow someone online, you have to get court permission to stalk a particular person. We don't have a mass system of such interception. "

He never says that they don't collect blanket data explicitly just that they don't do it illegally and that they cannot match the abilities of the NSA.

To add to this the Wiki article on SORM [wikipedia.org] states that the equipment was mandated by Law. So technically the surveillance is legal and transparent.

The only diffrence I'm seeing here is that 1. The Russians aren't as good as surveillance as the NSA. 2. They are totally open about the fact that everything you do on he internet o

If he were a whistleblower, we would have seen revelations in the press, not a document dump to the public.

The "document dump" to the public wasn't from Snowden, it was from Greenwald and Poitras. Like a number of whistleblowers who Americans have come to praise in respect, Snowden gave these documents to journalists and asked them to redact them before release to the public. If you have any issues with how that played out, Greenwald, Poitras and other news figures involved are the ones to blame.

Congratulations. Your post wins the "who can represent the worst stereotypes about Americans" prize for this thread.

Let's recap. Snowden revealed gross abuses and illegality in your government. Doing this results in the same sort of punishments as it does in many other countries with overly authoritarian leadership: lifetime in jail, as you request. So to do the big reveal you admit is something you "really needed", he had to run. His first choice was Hong Kong, but when it appeared the Chinese might hand him over or keep him jailed for years in diplomatic limbo he decided to go to Latin America, probably Ecuador. He was en-route there when the US Govt revoked his passport, leaving him stranded in Russia which happened to be on the way.

Your post and general mentality have multiple failures, but don't worry, they are correctable.

An absurdly strong "us vs them" complex.

A garbled and factually incorrect belief about events in very recent history.

A desire to see someone who did something "really needed" severely punished because he did it for "the wrong reasons", you of course don't elaborate on what those wrong reasons were. He has stated his reasons many times: he saw illegal behaviour and knew it had led to dangerous territory and serious abuses. He did not do it for personal fame or fortune, as evidenced by the fact that he is now broke and vanished from the scene almost entirely for months after he got let out of the Russian airport. Pretty hard to argue he had the wrong reasons.

Finally, a strong quasi-religious belief that the USA is better than Russia, despite the fact that they are both remarkably aggressive and corrupt societies, run by oligarchies, in which democracy is barely functional and anyone who challenges the status quo has to run away lest they end up with a life sentence from a kangaroo court. In addition, the populations of both countries are easily manipulated by telling them how glorious and special they are. There are far more similarities than you dare imagine.

There's a simple fix for your predicament - never use the word "traitor" ever again. It describes a state of fevered flag-waving tribalism which allows your own government to blind you and switch off your critical thinking. The people in power are not better than you or anyone else, they are just..... the people in power. Your country is not better than other countries, it's just.... the place where you were born. Your rulers deserve no loyalty, no special breaks. They are corrupt and untrustworthy to the core, they need to be watched constantly lest they abuse the powers they were temporarily granted for some purpose or another. You cannot be a traitor to such people, the concept simply has no meaning.

Once you get into this mentality, your recollection of historical events will probably improve.